“Exile is strangely compelling to think about but terrible
to experience. It is the unhealable rift forced between a human being and a
native place, between the self and its true home; its essential sadness can
never be surmounted.” Said by Edward Said. The quote has such a strong and
truthful meaning to it, though it’s easy for me to imagine what it’s like
because I have read and experienced it.
In Brave New World by Aldous Huxley. Bernard
Marx was the complete outsider of the book. He so painfully tried to fit in and
be happy by drinking soma (happy juice) and went to orgies, but it still didn’t
work. He didn’t feel happy and he was always looked at like he wasn’t supposed to
be an alpha that he should have been a beta.
Bernard thought that he can be happy and nontraditional with
Lenina Crowne, who is a vaccination worker at the central London Hatchery and
conditioning centre and is the girl that every alpha want to have sex with and
pretty much every guy has except Bernard. So he tries his best to take her out
on a date of obstacle golf without sex and Linina thinks he’s strange for not
so she just drinks soma instead. So at the end of the date he still feels alone
and an outsider.
Latter on Bernard asks his director if he can go take Lenina
on vacation in New Mexico at the savage reservation and his director says yes
after telling Bernard some information that gives Bernard leverage, but that
leverage backed fired after rumors went around that the director was going to
exile him after he gets back from vacation he starts to freak out. So he looks
at the savage reservation for information against the director in which he
finds out that the director had a son who happened to be a savage. So I think he’s
starting to feel that he might actually be worshiped for finding the savage and
finding out the savage is the director’s son.
When Bernard comes back and tells everyone who the savage is
and who his father is everyone is appalled and the world controller exiled Bernard.
Bernard is still alone and exiled more than anything, has no girlfriend because
Lenina ends up developing a violent passion for the savage. So I believe that Bernard
was a great example for the quote by Edward Said because he lived it through
the book. Bernard was exiled and alone and it sucks, it’s not a fun thing to go
through. You can be so alone and an outsider in a sea of people. Like Edward
said “Exile is strangely compelling to think about but terrible to experience”
and he was so right.
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